nine2five
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Season three as it should have been. No angst, no Buy More. No worries, right? Well, no. Marriage is exactly what it ought to be, but it's the only thing that is.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** This is an AU story, more of a concept really, following what I believe are more logical lines than those the original season 3 followed. While there are no doubt many stories that can be told in this vein, as ninjaVanish proved with the excellent Chuck and Sarah vs. Themselves, I have no intention of trying to write any of them at this time. If I should get an idea I will write it (I actually already have a couple). If any other author on this board gets an idea in this AU I hope they will write it too.

* * *

Chuck woke before the alarm, too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. For a little while he just lay there, enjoying the feeling of Sarah's warmth against his side and her even breathing as she slept, trying to let it lull him back into a doze. Instead he felt her hand move, fingers pressing 1-2-3-4 against his skin under the covers. _Status?_

He pressed 1-2-1-2 against her back. _Green._

"So why is your heart pounding so hard? You went from zero to tense in a moment, Mr. Bartowski, and almost threw me out of our bed."

Chuck smiled. He'd been called Mr. Bartowski all of his life, usually by people who were annoyed with him, but he didn't smile those times. When Sarah called him Mr. Bartowski, though, she meant something totally different. "Just first day jitters, Mrs. Bartowski."

Sarah twisted her head up to look at him, still snuggled close. "Chuck, you've spent the last year and a half with a computer's worth of image-encrypted government secrets in your head, autocratic generals and devious spies running your life, lying to your friends while jumping off of buildings, dodging air strikes, and getting out of the car to run to the rescue of beautiful damsels in distress far more often than I like to admit—"

Chuck gave her a quick hug. Sometimes she had been the damsel, sometimes it was some usually-brunette female person that he'd foolishly let come between him and the woman of his dreams. In either case apology was called for.

She hugged him back. "But you're getting first day jitters _now_?"

He shrugged. "I've never met General Beckman in person before."

She laughed, propping herself up on one elbow to stare down at him. "Those would be 'going-to-meet-the-intimidating-NSA-General' jitters, Chuck. I can understand that. All this time you've only seen her over a monitor, and believe me those things make everyone look larger than life, but she's really rather short." Sarah's eyes got a faraway look in them. "On the other hand, you being so tall and all might make it worse…"

"This is you being reassuring? 'Cause you sort of suck at it. Can we maybe go back to you yelling at me for my foolish heroics and then making it up to me in the broom closet afterward? That'd calm me right down."

"I think we can do a bit better than a broom closet now." She leaned down to kiss him.

* * *

Chuck got out of his shower to find his lovely bride of not nearly long enough setting a plate of eggs and toast and other good stuff on the table for him. It was all very 'Leave It to Beaver' except for the filmy nightgown under the frilly apron, and under that... "I just got an idea for a great new Reality TV show," he announced.

She looked down at herself, then back at him with a grin. "Uh-huh." She knew exactly what gutters his mind ran in. She sauntered over to him, saying, "It'd fail miserably. I'll only ever have one viewer." She kissed him lightly. "Who'd better get started. Casey called, he's on his way over."

Chuck groaned. He liked living on cloud nine but Casey was a very down-to-Earth sort of guy. He sat down and started eating.

"Hey!" She threatened him with her spatula. "Enjoy that!"

Slowly.

* * *

"Have a nice morning, sweetie." She pressed a kiss against his lips with two fingers. "I'll pick you up at lunch. Front desk." She looked past him, at the driver. "Casey. Drive safe." She stood up and walked away, over to their own car and her trip to Langley.

Casey made a noise as Chuck rolled his window up. Not one of his usual grunts, and when Chuck looked over he saw his handler actually smile. A little. "What?"

Casey put the car into gear and pulled out into the street. "All that devotion to duty and love of country, boiled down to you. I don't know whether to smile, puke, or pray for your soul."

Chuck smiled. "Try grunting."

Casey grunted. The geek-loser-moron he'd had to endure for so long had vanished, replaced by someone far more respectable. Walker had been good for him, not that he'd ever say so. "Okay, listen up, Bartowski. You may not be under oath or under arms, but your boss is a General and you will display a proper amount of decorum in her presence, is that clear?"

"Uh…sure. Define decorum."

Casey sighed. "You will address her as 'Ma'am'. You will not interrupt. You will sit still and shut up, however hard that may be for you. You will answer her succinctly when and only when she asks you a direct question. She's even less interested than I am in your usual rambling explanations, and she won't care about your lady-feelings, sandwiches on desert islands or the latest video game characters."

"That…doesn't leave much."

Casey smiled. "Try grunting."

* * *

Casey saluted, at attention. "Colonel John Casey, reporting as ordered, General."

Beckman saluted back. "At ease, Colonel. Gentlemen, please sit." She waited until they had complied. "Mr. Bartowski—"

Chuck opened his mouth, but a grunt from Casey closed it again.

"—Are you certain you won't reconsider the original opportunity offered to you? I had intended to send you to our training facility in Eastern Europe to learn how to use the skills of the new Intersect properly."

Chuck shifted. He and Sarah had gone over this in detail on their honeymoon. "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure. I know that I've gotten myself into more than a bit of trouble over these last two years, but that was always because I had to. I never went looking for it and I don't want to start."

"Begging the General's pardon," said Casey, "But I agree with Chuck's self-assessment. He'll never be able to commit to the job one hundred percent. He might destroy himself trying."

Generals don't sigh, but Beckman came close. All those skills, wasted on a civilian. An extremely important civilian. "We agree, Colonel. Skills without the right attitude mean nothing. I was simply indulging a hope that the changes Sarah wrought included his attitude, but I can see that that is not the case. If anything he's affected hers. So we have devised a role which will make good and proper use of the skills and attitude he does have in abundance."

Chuck began to smell a rat. He was supposed to be an analyst. This was supposed to be a courtesy call. "What skills would those be, General?"

Beckman stared at him calmly. "Mr. Bartowski, do you think that if we removed the Intersect that it would remove all your problems? That you could simply disappear among a sea of analysts, to be known primarily as the husband of Sarah Walker?"

"Isn't that why you had Casey and Sarah guarding me all this time? All the secrets in my head? You have my father's program, just take them out."

"Chuck, your father's program has changed the game," said Casey at a glance from his commanding officer. "It's true you're no longer stuck with having those 'secrets in your head'…"

"But it's also true that you're the only one who can survive having them there," said Beckman. "We would have to guard you anyway, for that alone, so we may as well get some use out of the deal."

"What deal?" No way he'd accept another handler. "Sarah and I are married now."

"And you'll stay that way, Chuck. In fact we couldn't have hoped for a better arrangement."

Chuck stared at him, betrayed and suspicious. "And why is that, Casey?"

Beckman answered. "As your wife, she'll be there to guard you without us having to carry the assignment in our books. Any agent trying to find you would not know where to look for that information. Nor would any agent be so openly involved with an asset. She's obviously an agent…"

"Therefore I'm clearly not an asset."

Casey chuckled. "Nope."

"So what am I? Still just an analyst? That's what I was supposed to be."

The General and the Colonel shared a look. "Unfortunately the CIA's bureaucracy moved somewhat faster than our own in this matter, Mr. Bartowski. They assigned an analyst to your wife's team before we could secure that slot for you. The analyst pool is a possibility but we think we have an assignment that's even better as a cover."

Chuck frowned. "A cover for what?"

Beckman seemed surprised at the question. "Your work as the Intersect."

"But you just said I wasn't going to be the Intersect anymore!"

Casey glared at him. "No, we didn't, Chuck. We just said that as far as you and the missus are concerned you're not going to be an asset. And you're not. You won't have the Intersect outside the building."

"We'll use your father's program to remove it before you leave each day…"

"And put it back in the next day?"

General Beckman nodded. "Correct. At home and elsewhere, you would still be guarded as a necessary piece of a critical tool, but we have lots of those. Without the secrets actually present in your head the threat level would be much reduced. Your wife and her team will guard you when they're local, we'll assign a backup when they're not. Once in the building you will download the Intersect, and at that point the level of security will increase, but since you'll be physically in the CIA's most guarded building no one will notice."

"What about my Intersect skills?"

"Keep those to yourself, Chuck. In case an enemy manages to get past us and the little woman, those skills may be all that keeps you out of their hands, so don't let anyone know you have them."

"Does Sarah know?"

"The DDO will be reading Agent Wal—Agent Bartowski in this morning."

"Good, I need to talk it over with her."

"Do you honestly think she'll refuse?"

"Do you honestly think she'll calmly accept me making a unilateral decision of this magnitude?"

Casey chuckled again. Even Beckman's lip twitched. "So, contingent upon Sarah's formal acceptance of our strategy, and any codicils she may suggest, Colonel Casey will now administer the necessary oaths."

One administration of necessary oaths later…

"Excellent, Mr. Bartowski, glad to have you voluntarily on the team at last. I understand Sarah will be here to get you shortly. She will take you to Langley and the Data portion of the Intersect will be removed. Colonel Casey will meet you there tomorrow, to introduce you to your cover position in Interiors Maintenance."

"My cover where?"

"Interiors Maintenance."

"You're making me a _janitor_?"

"Oh, not just any janitor, Chuck. You're going to be the laziest, sloppiest, most incompetent janitor in United States history."

"You're making me _Janitor Jeff_?"

Casey smirked. "Welcome to government service."

* * *

**A/N** As I said above, I hope some of you will try this AU on for size, there are a number of elements to it that I've never seen used before, especially the idea of a removable Intersect. There are lots of story lines around the medical complications of that alone, not to mention the exact nature and duties of Interiors Maintenance, the Analyst's Pool, etc. Go wild!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** There's a good bit of innuendo in this one, but nothing explicit. I don't do explicit. I do silly, though.

* * *

Sarah Walker saw them as she signed in at the front desk of the NSA building, her wonderful, wonderful husband making even the institutionally ugly décor of the NSA lobby look pretty as he sat on the uncomfortable chairs talking to an attractive brunette caretaker.

Sarah's eyes narrowed.

Naturally the two were best friends by now, Chuck did that to everyone. Naturally the woman placed her hand gently on his arm as she laughed at some comment he'd just made, his very being invited such casual intimacies. Naturally the woman was looking Chuck over, from his warm brown eyes to his lovely collarbones and all the exposed parts in between, parts that she herself spent much of her time kissing.

"Chuck!"

Instantly Chuck's gaze left the woman, forgetting her instantly, his face lighting up as it always did, only for his wife. She stalked up to them as they rose, glaring, and his face fell just a bit. "Sarah! We were just waiting for you. This is Agent Swanson–"

"Kimberly," corrected the young woman, holding out her hand.

She smiled back, and clasped the offered hand. "Sarah Walker. A pleasure. Thank you for taking such good care of my husband."

"The pleasure was mine. Goodbye, Chuck." Agent Swanson vanished inside.

Sarah frowned at her husband. "You. Car. Now."

Chuck waited until they got outside. "What did I do?"

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh. "The same thing you always do, Chuck. It's just more noticeable when women like her are around!"

He smiled. "Sarah, are you jealous?"

Now she looked confused. "Me? No, why would I be? I own your smile." She smiled.

He smiled back automatically. "Which smile?"

"That one. Hordes of beautiful ladies throwing themselves at your feet but you smile like that for _me_. Only for me. I'm not sure whether to thank Jill or deck her."

"You did worse than deck her, you arrested her."

"She deserved it, for breaking your heart, leaving you stuck in a hopeless, ambition-less rut at the Buy More. Maybe I'll thank her next time. If she hadn't broken your heart I'd be five years too late. I've seen how many have started lining up since I got here."

"There won't be a next time for Jill, but aren't you afraid that one of these hordes of beautiful ladies will sweep me off my feet?"

"Me?" _Afraid? _"You?" _Swept?_ "Please."

He blushed. "I'm just a guy, after all."

She stopped in her tracks and turned, stopping him with a sharp finger planted against his chest. "No you are not! You are a _man_!" Her fingers went up to trace those lovely lines of his neck. "My man, Chuck Bartowski. I've seen enough _guys_ to know the difference."

"You stole that from _Say Anything_!"

"It's a good movie!" He broke into a grin. "What?"

He kissed her on the nose. "Somewhere along the line I turned you into a real girl."

She hugged him. "Somewhere between saying 'I do' and carrying me across the threshold, I believe."

Chuck stood there a moment just enjoying the feeling. "So–?"

She pulled back enough to look him in the face without totally letting go. "So what?"

"You're not afraid of the competition, and you have total faith—completely justified, I might add—that I won't give in to temptation. So why were you mad at me?"

She made a face. "And what makes you think I'm not still mad at you?" Breaking her embrace, she took his hand and towed him off.

"If this is you being mad I must remember to do it more often."

"Don't," she warned, "The make-up sex might kill you."

"Okay, rethinking my devious plot. Why _are_ you mad at me?"

"Agent Swanson was ogling you." She got into the car, just a government-issue POS but he assumed there was a reason for it.

He got in too. "Aha, so you _are_ jealous."

"No, I'm annoyed that you took your tie off when I told you not to. I don't care about the NSA so much but now we're heading for where I work, and I want to show off my man looking all spiffy."

Her man, the new, incompetent Interior Maintenance trainee. Apparently she hadn't been read in on everything. "Uh, Sarah…"

One reading her in on everything later…

"I swear I will shoot them both! Let the new janitor dispose of the trash!" She pulled out her pistol and the silencer, started screwing it on.

Chuck laid his hand over hers. "Now, sweetie, that sounds like a great plan, really it does, but I honestly don't want all of our children to be born in between conjugal visits."

"Fine," she snarled, putting the weapon down. "Can I torture them a bit? They won't miss a few what do you mean 'all'?"

_Crap. _"Did I say 'all'?" Chuck smiled weakly. "I meant 'any', it just came out 'all'."

She fixed him with a predatory look. "How many is all, Chuck? Eight? Ten?"

Can you blame a guy for panicking? "How high can Colonel Casey count?"

_Twenty, if he's naked._ She briefly mourned that missing toe. "Okay. You drive a hard bargain, Bartowski, but I won't cut anything off."

* * *

She pulled over briefly, just outside the entrance to the parking lot. "Here, put this on."

It looked like a cloth bag. "How?"

"It's a hood, Chuck. No one can be allowed to know the identity of the Intersect, not even the people guarding him. It's bad enough you're as tall as you are."

He put it on. "It's dark in here. Is my seeing eye dog allowed to know the identity of the Intersect?"

She put the car into gear, turned into the lot. "Turn it around, Chuck. There's a thin cloth panel you can see through."

"You're right, there is."

"Don't talk, we're at the booth."

"IDs, please."

Sarah handed over her ID, and a special pass. "I'm in this car alone, understood?"

The guard's eyes bugged out at some of the names on her pass before he handed them back. "Yes, ma'am. Have a nice day. Gate four." Only her pass would open that gate, and if she tried to go through another gate now he or another guard just like him would shoot her.

She pulled up outside the proper door and got out of the car, hurrying over to the other side before the asset could open it himself, like a good handler would. Chuck got out of the car and stood, looking Sarah pretty much in the eye. She flinched. "What the hell have you done?"

His voice was low, and muffled by the bag. "It's an Intersect skill, Agent Walker, you said I was too tall. If my pants were baggier I could drop another inch or two, but this should be enough for now."

She smiled. "Not flashy, but effective. Excellent work, Agent Carmichael."

"Let's go in, this is really killing my thighs."

Once past the inner guard and inside the secure elevator Chuck stood straight and removed the hood. "Damn that hurts."

Sarah snuggled up close in their few precious moments of alone time. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"It's my legs, Sarah."

"So? The halls are cleared, no one will see us. We could get started ransoming Casey's thumb right there in the hall and no one would know."

"Okay, first of all, _eww_! Second of all, I'd know, and if that's really how you plan to keep track I'm cutting you off at nineteen, because third, _eww_!"

"You're cutting _me_ off, are you?"

Chuck slapped his hands over his ears. "I'm not listening, la-la-la-la!"

The door opened, and he dropped his hands quickly. "Come on," said Sarah, "Let's get you set up."

The Intersect room was familiar, identical to the one in which Bryce had died. Chuck stood by the monitor while Sarah made a phone call. "Base, this is Kaleidoscope."

"Kaleidoscope, Base. Is the subject ready?"

She gave Chuck a thumbs-up. "Subject is ready, base."

"Clear the room, Kaleidoscope. Upload commencing in three zero seconds."

"Understood, Base. Kaleidoscope out." She closed the phone. "Good luck, Chuck. I'll be just outside." She backed towards the door, trying to keep him in sight as long as she could. She would have preferred to be inside, they were sure the upload wouldn't hurt anyone, but the room had been rigged with remote telemetry and they didn't want extra bodies in there. Once on the other side, the door sealed and the overhead light turned red.

She needn't have worried. After the door closed, Chuck looked back down at the monitor at the message written there: 'Good Luck, Son'. As far as he knew, no one knew his father's whereabouts. He certainly wasn't on the Intersect team. Officially. "Thanks, Dad."

At T plus thirty seconds precisely the walls started to flicker.

At T plus one minute precisely the overhead light turned green again, and the door unsealed. At T plus one minute and two seconds precisely Sarah was standing next to her dazed-looking husband as he wavered on his feet. Her phone rang. "Kaleidoscope, this is Base. What is the subject's condition?"

"Base, Kaleidoscope. Subject is upright and vertical." With a little help.

"Excellent, Kaleidoscope. Bring subject to medical for part two evaluation. Base out."

Sarah looked into her husband's eyes, well, the one pointing her way at the time. "Chuck, can you walk?"

He closed his eyes, shuddering from top to bottom. When he looked at her again both eyes were looking in the same direction. "You're kidding, right? I feel like I can float there!"

"It's a hallucination, Chuck. Believe me, I just kept you from falling over like a board and I know how much you weigh. No floating for you." She took his arm, just to be on the safe side. "Come on, time for your post-dump check up."

"Lay on, MacDuff."

"Isn't that 'lead on'?"

"No. Honestly, no one gets that right."

"Whatever. This way, Shakespeare."

Medical, sensibly, had been placed right across the hall from the Upload Room, for obvious reasons. So Chuck didn't have to stumble very far to make it to the exam room and collapse into a chair. Sarah waited by his side until the doctor finished studying the telemetry results and looked over at the subject for the first time. "Hello, Chuck, Sarah."

Sarah smiled back. "Hello, Ellie."

* * *

**A/N **Not exactly where I'd intended to be but there's more to be done with this first set. Please review, comment, drop me a line. Love the feedback so far.


	3. Doctor's Orders

**A/N** No betas. No excuses. But I did get some comments earlier that I hope have been addressed in this chapter.

* * *

"They turned him into a _what?_" Even as outraged as she was, Doctor Eleanor Bartowski-Woodcomb kept her voice low for the sake of her recuperating patient. Her brother was resting for her prescribed hour before the next stage in his examination, and she took doctor's orders seriously, especially her own.

Sarah matched her volume, if not her tone. "Yeah, that's what _I_ said."

Ellie shook her head. "Oh, no. Oh no you didn't. Someone with your skills, training, and weapons in the trunk would have taken more direct action, and I think I would have heard about a terrorist rampage cutting a bloody swath through NSA headquarters, even stuck down in this high-security hole like I've been all day."

Sarah blushed in combined amusement and anger. "Your brother had a hand in that." She could still feel the warmth of his hand on hers. "Something about multitudes of children, prison hospitals, and conjugal visits."

"You talked him into multitudes?" Ellie looked shocked. "I'm glad he's resting _now_, then." She frowned. "How much is multitudes, anyway?"

"Twenty."

Ellie sprayed cold water all over the clinic. "Twenty?"

Sarah shrugged, and handed her a tissue. "Casey ran out of expendable digits. And…other things."

"You held John Casey to _ransom_?"

"In absentia." Sarah sighed. "But now I can't kill him _or_ torture him, so I'm SOL on the revenge front."

"Bullcrap."

Sarah laughed. "What?"

"Bull-loney. And other words beginning with 'bull' that a PG-13 gal like me isn't very comfortable saying." Ellie tapped Sarah's hand with her finger. "You are Sarah Walker, the CIA's best. You should be able to think rings around those NSA goons, especially for what they did to your husband and my brother. Don't they have classes in how to do that sort of thing?"

Sarah looked away. "Uh, yeah, I guess, but Seduction School really isn't…and anyway I never really liked those sorts of missions…"

"C'mon, Sarah, you've gotta think sideways here!"

"Now you're sounding like my father. I didn't like my missions for him either."

"Well channel him now, just this once. What would your father do?" Sarah thought back to the last time she'd seen her father, and smiled. Ellie liked that smile. "And whatever you think of I wanna help."

Sarah nodded. "Oh, yes. You can definitely help with this one."

* * *

Chuck lay in bed like a good boy, afraid to leave his bed against doctor's orders, even when said doctor was being uncharacteristically quiet on the other side of the door. With his wife. Especially then. Nature, on the other hand, was definitely calling. He snuck one foot out of bed and on to the floor.

The door opened. "Hey Chuck."

He pulled his leg back up, but it got caught in the covers. "I wasn't trying to get up but I need to go to the bathroom!"

Ellie frowned. "You know what I said. If you need to go, just ring the bell. I'll have Sarah here bring you a bedpan."

Sarah looked as shocked as Chuck. "What?"

"Sorry, Sarah, but all the money for the project went into building the room across the hall. I don't have a nurse. I just figured, you being his wife and all…"

Sarah froze. _Bedpan duty?_

Chuck burst out laughing. "Too funny, sis. You really had her going, there."

Ellie smiled and turned to her victim. "I'm sorry, I know, that was cruel, but really you should have seen your face." She spun back. "Where do you think _you're_ going, mister?"

Chuck froze, his foot again on the floor. "Uh, Ellie, I really do have to go."

Ellie relented. "Fine, go. We were just coming in to tell you your hour's up. Your phase three will be here soon so get ready."

As Chuck hobbled to the little room in the corner Sarah asked, "Phase three?"

"Mm-hmm. They have to make sure all traces of the Intersect data are gone. They have a guy who's going to give him a thorough going-over, basically turn his brain inside out looking for any traces. It'll be kind of hard to watch, I know I'm not going to stay. You coming?"

Sarah stood her ground. "Fool me once, Ellie Bartowski."

Ellie pouted. "You're no fun, you know that? Okay, this guy's gonna come in here and chat with Chuck for a while, while some pictures show on a screen. We'll have Chuck rigged up to see if there's any suspicious brain activity but we're just getting some baseline statistics at this point."

"He's not going to hurt Chuck?"

"Please, the worst this guy'll do is stand too close and try to look down your blouse. I'm told his boss was a lot creepier, but he disappeared a couple of years ago and nobody misses him."

"I doubt that," said Sarah. "CIA scientists don't just disappear. Who was he? There had to have been an investigation."

Ellie shrugged. "Somebody named Zarnow, that's all I know. Rumor has it he was blown up and there was a cover-up. You okay Sarah? You look like you're choking."

"It's…the air in here, a bit dry. Is there any water?"

"In the outer room. I have to get Chuck set up first." Ellie walked away. "Chuck, sweetie, what happened, did you fall in?"

* * *

Sarah took up station in the outer room, waiting for Zarnow's 'assistant'. In a few minutes, the door opened, and a tall, rather portly man entered the room, pushing a cart with some equipment already set up on it. He showed no surprise at her presence, merely appreciation at having another beautiful woman to look at. "Hi, I'm Sam," he said in a strong Southern accent, as if that was the most important thing she could need to know about him. He held out his hand.

She took it. "Sarah Walker. _Agent_ Sarah Walker. I'm your subject's handler."

Sam smiled amiably. "Well, he seems to be in good hands, then. Is the doctor in there with him?"

Sarah smiled back. "Yes, she's just getting him set up for you. I'd offer you something but it's not my office and I only know where the water cooler is."

"From your hands even that would be a blessing."

She laughed, and took that as a 'Yes', so she got him a small cup of water as Ellie came out of the back room. For a second he stared at Sarah and the water, before taking the cup from her hand. "Thank you kindly, Agent Walker."

"He's all ready for you, Sam," said Ellie. For some reason she'd put on a smock. Sam gave her a cordial nod but his attention soon returned to Sarah.

"What is all this?" she asked, as if she hadn't seen Zarnow setting up much the same equipment for his test of Patient X.

"The screen's for the trigger images. You know about those, right?"

She nodded. "I saw them once, too, although I had sunglasses on at the time." She didn't see any sunglasses on the cart.

"No, no, those are for the upload images, much worse, but the sunglasses block out critical frequencies. I have trigger images here, specially made to prompt for specific data."

"So you're forcing him to flash?"

"Yes. We can't make him do it most of the time, the human brain makes its own connections, but for some of the images we have specific triggers. Part of what I'll be doing is research to create user-specific trigger patterns."

Using Chuck as a guinea pig. "Well, good luck to you," said Sarah, in the tone of someone whose eyes are glazing over.

"Thank you. Well, ladies, it's been a pleasure, but duty calls." He pushed his cart through the door to the back room.

"Nice smock," said Sarah.

"It keeps the things I want off me off me." She made a face in Sam's direction. "How do you stand it?"

Sarah snorted. "After some of the things I've been through, a little old-fashioned genteel lecherous appreciation is almost refreshing. He's not trying to ravish me, I'm not trying to manipulate him, so it all evens out. It's not like he can help it."

"Look, I know it's hard-wired into us, and I certainly don't mind Devon looking at me that way, I'm just saying it would nice if more men made an effort to be less obvious about it. It's not like that's the _only _ hard-wired reflex we've got." Ellie stripped off the smock, its purpose served, and went back to her desk. "Okay, good, scans are good, and synchronized to Sam's feed."

"Can I watch?"

"If you want to. It should be about as interesting as watching paint dry." Ellie pointed at an inset window, currently showing a hippopotamus. "The images are timed, and we can tell if an image sets off a spike anywhere. Which none of them should. Sam's also chatting with him, somewhat scripted but not iron-clad. It's being recorded though, so we can do a match later if we need to."

Sarah watched as the images changed, flicking her gaze to the line on the paper. Eventually she gave up, having given herself a headache. "This is dull."

Ellie nodded. "The picture part is. I'm listening to the conversation. It's kind of cute to watch the way his waves spike when Sam mentions certain blonde super-agents." She tapped the screen. "Like here."

Just then, Chuck laughed, a machine-gun, rapid-fire, braying laugh completely unlike the sounds he normally made. Sarah knew her man, and whatever wasn't right was definitely wrong. She left Ellie behind without a thought and pushed through the door.

"You're kidding, right?" said Chuck, not seeming aware of her presence. "You want me to tell tales out of school about Agent Walker's husband? He tore strips out of an NSA Major over a _parking space_!"

_Ooh, clever little detail, Chuck._ Sarah arranged her face into a frown. "A-hem."

Chuck got wide-eyed. "I wasn't saying anything, Agent Walker!"

"I know you weren't, Chuck. Good boy. Sam."

He didn't look up. "Uh, yes, Agent Walker?"

"Are you really trying to subvert a National Intelligence asset with his handler in the next room?"

"He wasn't trying to subvert me, he was just asking me about some rumors…"

"Quiet, Chuck. I am assigned to protect you. He's asking you for personal details about me which could potentially weaken my ability to do that. Isn't that right, Sam?"

"Yes, Agent Walker." Sam said to the floor. "I apologize. I hadn't thought about the ramifications."

"For God's sake, Sam," said Ellie, sounding terrified, "Stick to the script. She could kill you."

Sarah snorted. "Not for this. The intelligence business deals in partial information, making up stories to fit the few known facts. Rumors aren't very different. Which one was it this time, the mercenary gang he defeated with a pocket comb, or the Russian gangsters he took out while he was on the toilet?"

"He wanted to know if it was true you met your husband when he fell off a three story building and crashed into you," said Chuck.

For a second Sarah glared at Sam's hunched back, breathing heavily. "Close enough," she said at last. "You're done here, aren't you, Sam?"

His head turned as he looked at his screen. "Yes, it, uh, looks like I am."

"Good. Try to do better tomorrow."

"Thank you, Agent Walker." He unplugged his devices and pushed the cart out without another word. Ellie bent double, choking on her laughter.

Chuck watched Sarah's face light up as the sound of the door closing reached them, and he smiled back. They'd done it! No way was Sarah Walker going to be married to some dorky janitor washout. Much better to have a mysterious super-agent husband for the well-known super-agent wife. Sarah raised her hand and he raised his hand too.

Then Sarah turned an high-fived Ellie. "Woot!" they said together, and turned to look at him with grins on their faces.

He looked back and forth, one face to the other. "What?"


	4. Derring Don't

**A/N** Very Ellie, very silly, the last part of the first part.

* * *

"Which do you think is better, 'plunged heroically' or 'swooped down'?"

Sarah lifted the clipboard. "I'll settle for 'lowered yourself by 2 inches.'"

"Two inches? It was more like thirty feet."

"I'm talking about that 'make yourself shorter' trick you pulled earlier, Chuck. It's not on the list of skills they want me to test, but since you've displayed it let's see if you still have it."

"Oh. You mean this." Suddenly he seemed a bit shorter.

"Very good. I see your knees, though."

"Yeah, like I said, I need looser pants for it to really work." He stood up again. "So, plunging or swooping?"

"How about screaming and leaping?" She tossed him a set of beanbags.

He snatched them out of the air and started juggling. "I did not scream. Prayed, maybe. You heroic warrior types, maybe you scream and leap but us completely unheroic nerdy types, we wonder what we're doing there in the first place. And if there was any screaming after I leapt, well, you know, I'm not aware of it because I was really kinda sorta more interested in hitting the _right_ beautiful woman when I finally got to the rescue."

There were just _so_ many things wrong with that statement, but she focused on the most important one. "You thought Sasha Banacek was beautiful?" She threw a knife his way, pointy end first.

Her completely unheroic nerd flinched, dropping two of the bags as he knocked the knife out of the air with the third. "Uh, no, not at all, but she had a sort of assassin-y bad girl quality about her…and remember I was thirty feet up, with the wind in my eyes!"

She looked enlightened. "Ah, I see, like beer goggles. With falling." She tossed him three more knives, hilt first. "In the target."

_Bullseye._ "I wasn't falling." _Bullseye._ "I was swooping dramatically!" _Bullseye._

"Well, there, you see. You answered your own question." She walked over and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

He closed his eyes and fell, completely unheroically. "What question?"

"Swooping or plunging to the rescue." She grabbed his hand and tugged. "This way."

His eyes popped open in surprise. "Ahh!" He followed. "You're welcome."

She stopped at a small table, with a miniature door mounted on it, with a full sized lock. and slapped him lightly on the cheek. "The kiss was for my husband. For you the asset, not so much. Do you have any idea of the abuse I took having to get rescued by my protectee?"

"I must have missed that meeting."

"You bet your ass you missed that meeting! Casey and Roan were there too, but I was the one who had her own gun turned on her. Now pick the lock."

There were no tools provided. "Um…sorry?" He reached up to her hair and stole one of her pins, snapped it in half, and started to work.

She frowned. "Don't be. As long as my husband does the dramatic swooping and the asset stays in the car like he should, we're good."

He winced. "Well, obviously that whole asset-to-the-rescue thing was a clever ploy of your husband's, trying to stay out of the limelight." He pulled out his impromptu lockpicks, and opened the door. "He knocked me down, stole my shirt. I even had the scrapes on my hands to prove it."

"That's so like him," said Sarah, making a notation on the chart. "But he'd better stop, it might backfire someday. I'm very protective of my assets." He gave her a _So am I_ leer, and she smacked him again. "And you owe me a bobbypin."

"Don't be petty, just because I did it faster than you." He rubbed the spot where her hand landed on his face. "I think he'll be doing his own dirty work from now on."

Ellie caught the remark as she walked into the room. "Who'll be doing what dirty work?"

"My husband," said Sarah. "He tried to make it look like my asset here performed some heroic feats on my behalf, but it seems the rumor mill caught him out. Hard to fool trained CIA analysts."

Ellie put a hand dramatically to her throat. "Oh thank goodness those stories aren't true. I'd hate to think of my poor brother here ever putting himself in harm's way." She impaled him with a laser-intense gaze. "Isn't that right, Chuck?"

He raised his hands in a show of fear, up in front of his face. "Mercy!"

"Better. So. What are you calling this rumor of yours?"

He dropped the pose. "Chuck versus the Heroic Rescue."

"No."

"Chuck versus the Daring Swoop?"

"Uh-uh."

"How about 'Chuck versus the three story fall and almost breaking his neck like the idiot Casey always said he was'?" said Sarah.

"I didn't—!"

Ellie nodded. "Fine, but leave out the 'Chuck' part." She looked around, at the beans and the impaled bag. "You want to tell me what you were just doing in here?"

Sarah gestured at the open door. "Lock picking."

"I was seeing some spikes on the chart. How do you feel, Chuck? I saw you rubbing your face."

"She slapped me."

Ellie turned to Sarah. "Don't do that."

Sarah squelched a sudden impulse to salute. "Yes ma'am."

"Yeah, Sarah, stick to the script. Ahh-ah!"

Ellie grabbed Chuck's chin and pulled his head around, so she could look carefully at his eyes. "Anything else?"

"'Omeone's 'inching by chaw!" Ellie let go. "And I have a bit of a headache."

"Since when?"

"Since the door." Sarah made a note.

"Let me know if it gets worse."

"Sure." Chuck rubbed his jaw as his sister left. "I've gotta get some _male_ authority figures in my life."

"What was that, Chuck?"asked Sarah from behind him.

He turned. "Nothing, sweetie."

"Good. Come here." She tossed him a staff to match the one she held.

"Didn't Ellie just tell you not to hit me?"

"Unscripted, Chuck. Which this isn't."

He held his weapon away from his body. "I don't want to hurt you, Sarah."

She spun her staff casually. "Now you're insulting me, Chuck."

He smiled weakly. "I'm not gonna win this one, am I?"

She gave him 'the Eye', and gestured with her fingers, inviting.

He calmed himself. He could be either Neo or Agent Smith in this scenario, and Neo got the crap kicked out of him. Taking a deep breath, he found his calm center and fla—

* * *

Beeping.

Groaning.

"Ellie!"

"On my way!"

He heard the thump, felt the light get brighter and then dimmer again through his closed eyelids. The bed shook and he knew this house had a doctor in it.

"Chuck, look at me."

He obeyed, as he'd obeyed his sister all his life, and always would. "Oo, look. Stars!" he croaked. "Ready when you are, Raoul!"

"Oh, no," said Sarah.

"Don't worry yet," responded Ellie. "Name the movie, Chuck."

"_Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_, of course." Did she think he didn't know his movies?

Ellie smiled. "That's my little brother."

"What…?"

"No. Don't try to talk. You tried to flash on the weapon skills and set off every alarm we have. I'm not sure why but I'm thinking some of your skill sets are linked to the data sets in the Intersect. We'll have to figure out a way to stop you from flashing until I can figure out if that's true, and which ones."

"The knives…"

Sarah came closer. "Those are reflexes, Chuck. Muscle memory, no thinking required. But no cake baking, bricklaying, or playing doctor except for the old-fashioned way, okay?"

He smirked.

She whacked—patted him on the shoulder. "You know what I mean! And that includes the kung fu stuff. We'll have to defend you."

Ellie nodded. "I was just writing a letter to your General, Chuck, telling her she's going to have to rethink your protective detail." She looked up at Sarah. "You take him home, keep him occupied with things that won't make him flash. No news, no Rachel Ray, nothing like that." She went back to her desk.

"We'll have to go out to dinner, Chuck. Give Casey a chance to be subtle. Then we can go home and watch Wheel of Fortune."

"Shoot me now."

"Don't be silly, sweetie," said Sarah. "Except for all the angst and celibacy, it'll be just like old times."

"I know…"

* * *

"Surveillance all set up?"

She took off his shoes, helped him get undressed. "Mm-hmm. Casey had it done while we were out. Mostly external, a few on the inside covering entrances and exits." She tipped him into bed still in his underwear and tucked him up nicely. Then she went to her dresser and started unbuttoning her blouse.

"And you believed them?"

One sweeping of the bedroom for bugs later…

"Told you."

She pulled the covers all the way up. "Believe me I _will_ have a talk with Casey's little boys tomorrow."

…"Hey Sarah."

"Yes Chuck?"

"You know I never used the Intersect in here, right? No flashes of any kind."

"Really?" She rolled right. "Ellie _did_ say…"

He rolled left. "Oh, yeah."

* * *

The next morning

"Hey Casey," said Chuck as he got into the car, none the worse for the wear after his experiences yesterday, "You're looking all Grim and Reaper this morning. Didn't you enjoy your talk with Sarah? I know I did."

"Stow it, Bartowski." Casey glared at him like a snake that spent all night listening to crickets it couldn't eat. "Thanks to your little stunt yesterday I just got assigned to your protective detail. It's not bad enough I had to clean up after you for two years, now I have to clean up after the whole damned CIA."

_Oh yeah, just like old times. _"Look at the bright side, Casey."

Casey put the car in gear, watched his mirror. "What bright side? The only bright side this job has will be the muzzle flash as someone puts me out of my misery."

"At least you won't be tending bar anymore. Until the office Christmas party, anyway."

Casey growled louder than the Crown Vic's engine.

Chuck smirked. "Welcome to government service."

* * *

**A/N** The whole story isn't complete, just this part of it. I'm still hoping other people will want to share in this AU, and I have other story ideas that have a different tone to them, so they'll be done as separate stories. If it's a nine2five story, it'll say so.


End file.
